The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

6 THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. the ardour of his passion might cool—new faces| American river. A pleasure-vessel, having a nu- might inspire new sentiments—and even if another | merous party on board, amongst whom were several affection might not beguilo him from his first love, , gentlemen attached to the English Embassy in the prudential reasons might induce him to form some | United States, had been upset in a sudden squall— | brilliant matrimonial alliance. Eliza listened with | and every soul had perished. The paragraph gave | mingled grief and astonishment to her father’s ob- | the names of some of the principal personages who servations; and enthusiastically did she express her | had thus met their death: and amongst those conviction—uttered however amidst torrents of | names was that of Bertram Vivian. tears—that Bertram would remain faithful. Captain | Captain Lacey was reading an Oxford paper one Lacey had nerved his fortitude to the accomplish- {| morning after breakfast, when this paragraph met ment of a certain duty; and he was resolved not to | his eyes; and the sudden ejaculation which burst do it by halves. He therefore went on to say that | from his lips, caused Eliza to question him with Eliza, if she were prudent, would do well to pre- | trembling anxiety as to the source of his emotions. pare herself for any eventual disappointment—and | He dared not conceal the fact from her: but ere that painful though it were for him to issue a harsh | he showed her the paragragh itself, he gradually injunction, he felt the absolute necessity of forbid- | broke the fatal truth. Even before he had » ding all correspondence between berself and Ber- | finished, poor Eliza comprehended it all! Not tram,—adding that he himself would write the/a tear escaped her eyes—no word fell from her young gentleman a letter to explain his views on | lips: but pale as marble, she sat the image of the subject. dull, deep, blank despair. Her father caught her He did write such a letter. It was kindly and | in bis arms: then the flood-gates of her ineffable considerately worded,—recommending Mr. Ber- | affliction were opened—and she wept long, bit- tram Vivian to abstain, for at least a couple of|terly, agonizingly! Oh, for the hopes which that | years, from any correspondence with his daughter | heart had cherished, to be thus blighted all in a ! —suggesting that this interval would fully test the | moment !—Oh, for the fabric of expectant bliss state of his feelings with regard to her—and pro- | which her faithful and trusting soul had built up, mising that if at the end of the period he should | to be thus shattered in an instant! It was too still experience the same attachment, he (Captain; cruel. Captain Lacey, with the tears running Lacey) would bo only too delighted and proud to | down his wrinkled checks, besought her to calm permit Eliza to renew her engagement with the | her sorrow for Ais sake: but the cntreaty was a Hon. Mr. Bertrav. Vivian. long time vain. Hours passed ero Eliza could The young lady’s good sense showed her that | even bring herself to think deliberately upon this her father was acting with a due regard to her | fearful loss: days passed ere she could awaken welfare; and moreover, it was her habit to sub- | herself to a sense of the necessity of a pious and mit implicitly to his will. She had the fullest | holy resignation to the will of heaven. And during confidence in Bertram: sho had equal confidence | these days, 1t appeared to her as if it were all a in the strength of her own love. Two years—Oh!j}dream, and that her brain was only morbidly what was this interval as a test for that love which | reeling beneath the weight of some imagined she felt assured would outlive centuries, if human | calamity. In the night she would start up from a existence itself ranged over ages! The very ne- | feverish and troubled sleep—wakened as if by the cessity of clinging to hope made her picture to | anguished voice of a drowning one thrilling on her herself this interval as soon passing away; and |eare,—and pressing her hands violently to her then there need be no farther barrier to her happi- | throbbing temples, she would ask herself if it could ness! The engagement would bo renewed—or | possibly be true. At length this dream-like state rather ro-ecknowledged by her parent; and if | of being passed away, and left her to the astound- years should still elapse ere she became Bertram’s|ing sense of the awful reality. She prayed to bride, she could wait, happy and contented in the | heaven for strength to bear up against it: but consciousness of possessing his love. there were times when she felt as if she were The letter was despatched at once to Bertram | going mad. Then, passionately—Ob, how pas- Vivian ;: it reached him on the eve of his departure | sionately, would she press Bertram’s ring to her for the United States—and his reply came by re- | lips; and in this memento of his love in other and " turn of post. He bowed to Captain Lacey’s deci- | happier days, was her only consolation. Alas, sion,—n>t but that it pained him sorely: yet he | how poor a one !—and yet it was a solace, though bowed, so that this very submission might be taken | feeble as the last thread which retains the invalid as a proof of his love, shown to the daughter | to existence in the depth of a malady when the through the deferential respect paid to the father. | crisis for best or worst is come! But he besought Captain Lacey to assure Eliza of | Misfortunes never arrive alone. But a few his uncying constancy—of his imperishable devo- | weeks after the receipt of the intelligence from tion ! the United States, a fire broke out in Captain Laccy’s house ; and so rapid was the spread of the _——— devastating element, that all three dwellings were reduced in a few brief hours to blackened ruins. CHAPTER It Scarcely an article of furmture was saved: tho inmates considered themselves fortunate in es- THE DUKE OF MARCHMONT. caping with life alone. But this was not the full extent of the terrible calamity. Fire insurance A rear had passed away—it was now the summer | was not so generally practised in 1827 as it is of 1827—when the English newspapers gave some | now-a-days; and unfortunately Captain Lacey's meagre and scantily outlined account of a de- | property was not insured. The principal source plorable catastrophe which had taken place on anjof his income was thus cut off irretrievably— = DOOKS,.CO COMMUC